When I met my husband-to-be he worked hard as a reviewer. He gave me Shadows of Undrentide, an expansion of Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights, to play and the addiction was instantaneous. I have played it three tims with my main character, Akela, a half-elf Druid/Fighter/Weapon Master. My main char is always named Akela, which is also used to be my favorite internet nick. I have recently started to use the nick Cougar as I find that more appropriate. Yeah, I have a young husband. Sue me.
Noticing that I loved fantasy but hated anything that looked even slightly childish or had poor graphics, my husband introduced me to Morrowind. So I was stuck again. I created a Khajiit, whom I trained in melee weapons and alchemy. I got tired of him after a while and created Miko, a human asian beauty who loves flowers and learns anything she can about herbalogy and alchemy. She is also a merciless assassin. When I started started her I was unsure about her development character-wise. As a new gamer it was hard for me to alienate my characters too much from what I personally thought and felt so I couldn’t play hard-core evil characters. Chaotic good was an alignment that I felt more comfortable with. Now, after more than 5 years of serious gaming I have learned to distance myself enough from my characters to be able to play both thieves and brutal bandits.
Morrowind was followed by Dungeon Siege. I wasn’t too happy about the map, but the story was good and I had quite fun with it. Unfortunately I saved the game in the worst possible spot and got stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have restarted it with a new character, but got tired of it for some reason. The same has happened with Guild Wars. Guild Wars is my first MMORPG and I started playing it during the alpha test. Continued with all the beta test events and my husband gave me a pre-ordered copy for Christmas 2004. I played it until my eyes bled. I don’t remember how or why I got tired of it, but I haven’t touched it for more than a year.
Somewhere bewteen Dungeon Siege and Guild Wars I bought Sacred. I built a Vampiress character, had a lot of fun and got tired of it all before beating the main quest. Somehow I never seem to beat the main quest. The only games I have really completed so far are the NWN series. There is something about open RPG:s that make me want to stay in them, explore everything and let the character go about his/her life. Why end a good thing, sort of.
The current obsession is Oblivion. My husband got it first and at the time I was deep into Morrowind with Miko doing fairly well with her Morag Tong career and her lovely Japanese house off Vivec. I didn’t care much for the new game, but decided to give a 30 minute’s try when hubby was busy on the Xbox with GTA or whatever. Those 30 minutes are still ongoing and I’m completely absorbed with the vastness and beauty of Oblivion. I have played it on an almost daily basis since it’s launch and have a large family of Oblivion characters. All of them with different personalities, skills and ambitions. It’s nice. Just like playing with dolls when I was little.
Akela's Lair 